What’s with the Follow Unfollow?

follow unfollow pic credit: Jason Howie of flickr.com

You get a notification that a really popular account follows you and you get excited. You made it! You’ve must be doing something right you uber social media guru you!. After you finish doing your touchdown dance like the social media mogul you are, you go back to the account that you already followed back and realize they unfollowed you. What??? Must have been a mistake right? Well no you’ve just become a victim of follow fraud. Sadly millions of people fall prey to follow fraud every year. Its an endemic worse than the Twinkie epidemic of 2012 and can destroy swaths of social media accounts with the click of a button.

The Follow Unfollow method

The idea behind the follow unfollow approach is simple, follow a megaton of accounts and go back a day or so later and unfollow everyone. Rinse and repeat! Most accounts won’t even notice since you don’t get a notification when someone unfollows your account. Before you know it you too can reach 20,000 followers while only following a handful of accounts. You too can be that mega guru you were destined to become and slowly dominate the social media market with your skill and prowess. You too can be that account everyone hates!

Pros

Increases followers rapidly

Cons

Drastic reduction in engagement, which is more effective than followers

Time consuming

Everyone hates you

Social Media is about being SOCIAL and accounts that Follow Unfollow forget that. Instead the Follow Unfollow method tries to reduce social engagement to an algorithm they can game. If you are committed to social engagement and connecting with people do not engage in follow fraud rather leave meaningful comments, develop relationships, know your top supporters and grow your community not your followers. The followers will come just work on your content and your socializing and the rest will fall in place.